With the exception of the Catholic Church almost every Christian denomination insists that the Bible is the sole rule of faith and the only guide to heaven, even though that is not what the Bible says about itself. What the Bible does say about itself is that it's "useful" for making men perfect; not the only tool for making men perfect (2 Timothy 3: 13-17). Time and time again the Bible insists that there is truth to be found in Sacred Tradition, and that the Church would decide what is truth and what is not. The Bible never instructs the individual person to seek the truth by reading Scripture alone; in fact it tends to lean against it. The Bible says that many of Paul's writings, along with the rest of Scripture, are difficult to understand, and when the ignorant attempt to understand these passages individually they distort them to their own ruin (2 Peter 3: 15-17). A few chapters before that the Bible states that there is none of Scripture that is supposed to be for private interpretation (2 Peter 1: 10). A good example of the ignorant being unable to understand Scripture can be found in Acts 8:27-32. This is the story of Philip the deacon, and the Ethiopian eunuch. It should be noted that this story depicts the Ethiopian eunuch as one of the more intelligent characters found in the New Testament. He is a court official in charge of the entire treasury of Candace, and furthermore he is literate at a time when such people were a minority. As educated, as the eunuch must have been, when Philip asked him if he understood what it was that he was reading he replied, "How can I, unless someone explains it to me?" After Philip explained the Scriptures to him it prompts one to ask the question: How did Philip know the meaning of the Scriptures? The answer can be found in John 14:16-17, in John 15:26, and in John 16:12-13. The conversation that takes place in these three passages is at the Last Supper, and it is important to note that only the apostles were present to hear Jesus' words. It is here that Jesus promised to send the Spirit of truth to the apostles, that he might guide them into all truth. So the reason that Phillip could understand the Scriptures is that Christ, at the Last Supper, promised to send the Holy Spirit to guide all of the apostles into the truth. Later on these same apostles instructed Philip (the deacon) in Acts Chapter 6. The promise of guidance from the Holy Spirit must have been exclusively for the apostles along with all of the other bishops that they would ordain such as Matthias (Acts 1 :46), or the people that they would instruct such as Philip the deacon. If the promise was for everyone, why then was it not for the eunuch? Why doesn't everyone get the same message as their peers when they read the Bible? Since the Holy Spirit cannot lie to one and tell the truth to another, it can only mean that Christ sends the Holy Spirit to his apostles, and they teach the truth to the rest of mankind. Since the original apostles could not live forever, and there would still be a need for the truth to be taught to all, each apostle was succeeded by another bishop after his death. There is an example of this in the book of Acts of the Apostles in Chapter one where Matthias is chosen to take over the ministry that once belonged to Judas Iscariot. As was mentioned above, the Bible leans heavily on Sacred Tradition. If this sounds a bit unfamiliar, look at what the Bible says. In John 21:25 it says many of the things that Jesus did are not contained in Scripture. That's because they were to be handed down through oral Traditions. Not the traditions of men that Christ condemned in Mark 7:8, rather the Traditions that were encouraged by the apostles. In 2 Thessalonians 2: 15 Paul instructs the Thessalonians to hold fast to the Traditions that they had received, and in I Corinthians 11:2 Paul goes a step farther and actually praises the Corinthians for holding fast to Sacred Tradition. Paul even goes so far as to tell the Thessalonians that they should avoid those who reject the Traditions they have received because those who reject the Traditions are not on the straight path (2 Thessalonians 3:6). Some other things that should be noted are such places where Paul tells the Bishop Timothy to take as a model the sound teaching that he has heard him "say", not the sound teaching that he "read in the Bible" (2 Timothy 1:13). He also uses the word "heard" instead of "read" in 2 Timothy 2:2, and fmally one other place that speaks of the apostles' instructions outside of the Bible is Acts 2:42. Prior to the invention of the printing press in the mid-1400's the Bible had to be hand-copied by Catholic monks in monasteries. It could sometimes take up to three years to copy a Bible by hand due to the fact that lettering was done on sheepskin and it was done with quills and bottles of ink. As a result Bibles were extremely expensive. If it took three years to make one, then it was not out of the question that it took three year's wages to purchase one. By today's money that would easily be well over $30,000.00 for one Bible. The point is that for fourteen centuries Christians always listened to the Church in matters of faith and morals, and that the idea of reading the Bible individually and interpreting it privately is a new one, and could not have been held by the early Christians because not only is it unbiblical, but it also would have been a physical impossibility. There are many Protestant factions that make the claim that the Church does not have the authority to interpret Scripture or Tradition to them, and that their beliefs do not have to be subjected to Church approval. However, Scripture denies this typee of theology in several places. One such place is Matthew 18: 17-18 where Christ tells the apostles that if someone ignores the Church he should be excommunicated. He also directly gives the power of binding and loosing to the leaders of the early Church that they might possess this authority. Also, as I pointed out earlier it was Philip (a deacon who was instructed by the apostles), who taught the correct interpretation of the Scriptures to the Ethiopian Eunuch. In Paul's letter to the Bishop Timothy he calls the Church the "Pillar of truth" (1 Timothy 3:15). In Ephesians 5:22-33 Paul tells us that Christ is the head of his body the Church, and that the Church must be perfect without wrinkle or spot. If the head of the Church is Christ, and the Church is the pillar of truth, and the Holy Spirit has been sent by Christ to reveal the truth to the leaders of the Church, then how can we as Christians feel free to reject the teachings of the Church? Christ promised to found a Church that would last forever in Matthew 16:18 when he said "...1 will build my Church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it." And since the gates of Hell cannot prevail against it, and since Paul calls it the pillar of truth, we know that the Church founded by Christ can never teach an error. Just for a moment stop and consider the fact that Christ never personally wrote anything on paper, and never instructed His apostles to write anything on paper. (At least the Bible does not record such happenings.) Christ never said to search the Scriptures for answers, rather He sent His apostles out to teach and baptize all nations, not to write a book (Matthew 28: 19-20). He prayed three times at the Last Supper that all would be one (John 17:11, John 17:21, John 17:23). Later on Paul asks that the early Christians stay in one accord, and he also condemns divisions (Romans 15:5-6 and Romans 16:17 and 1 Corinthians 1:10-13 and 1 Corinthians 11:17-19 and Philippians 2:1-2). When a person puts all of these pieces together, the message is that Christ founded ONE Church that would last forever, that would always teach the truth, that would pass down His Sacred Traditions from the year 33 until now, and its leaders would be guided directly by Christ through the Holy Spirit. The Catholic Church is the only Christian Church that has existed from the year 33 until now. The Catholic Church has an unbroken succession of bishops that can be traced all the way back to the twelve apostles. The Catholic Church puts out a book that teaches what is morally right and wrong from the Bible and Sacred Tradition. All Catholics have an obligation to accept these teachings, which have gone unchanged for nearly two-thousand years. If a Catholic should reject any of those teachings it is not the fault of the Church, and they are really no different from the towns mentioned in Mark 6: 11. The Catholic Church in North America is no different in its teachings on faith and morals than the Catholic Church in South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, or Antarctica. The Catholic Church contains the largest most widespread unity of belief in all of Christianity .The Catholic Church held a council in the year 394 and again in the year 397, both in North Africa, at Hippo and Carthage. At these two councils it was determined which books would go into the Bible, and which books would not. The Bible itself does not contain a list of which books should be listed in the accepted canon. It was the Catholic Church that compiled the ancient writings that make up the canon of Scripture and it was the Catholic Church that first called it the Bible. So in reality, all Christians who submit to the Bible are submitting to the Catholic Church, because without the Catholic Church there would be no Bible. It was Catholic bishops (the apostles) who wrote the Bible, Catholic councils that determined which books should be in the Bible, and Catholic monks who made copies of the Bible by hand for over fourteen centuries. It is easy to be a skeptic, because sometimes truth lies in a direction where we least expect it, and where we do not want to go. I urge the reader of this article to check into the history of his or her own Church. Before 1517 there really weren't any Protestant Churches, and everyone believed that the Catholic Church was the pillar of truth that could teach no error. Protestantism from the very beginning has done much to divide Christianity and confuse sincere Christians with its lack of unity in belief. Protestantism in 1517 had one branch, but due to individualism in belief and in biblical interpretation, it has now split into more than 25,000 different branches, with 200 new divisions cropping up each week and each one proclaiming to live by the Bible alone. God has a defmite opinion of what is offensive to Him and if we do not listen to the leaders of the Church that He founded and left on earth, then we cannot know if we offend Him or not? If Christ really did found a Church just as he promised in Matthew 16:18 then it can never die and Christian unity can only be attained by the action of everyone joining it. Some important questions to consider while searching for the true Church are as follows: "If Christ founded the Church that I attend then where is the evidence that it existed before 1517 A.D.? Since Scripture doesn't mention a list of the books that should be contained in the Bible, how can I know that my Bible contains all of the inspired books? If the Bible wasn't handcopied by Catholic Monks over the centuries then how does my Church have a copy of it today? Many controversies are raised in this article, and they cannot all be addressed here. However, the reader should feel welcome to make an appointment to talk to the nearest Catholic priest. Many priests would enjoy discussing the faith with all who inquire. May God Bless all of those who earnestly seek the truth.
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